


A Merrier World

by raiyana



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Cultural Differences, Friendship, Gen, Post-Quest of Erebor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 14:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16955805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiyana/pseuds/raiyana
Summary: What makes a house a home?A Dís and Bilbo friendship tale.





	A Merrier World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackhair85](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackhair85/gifts).



The wee Hobbit her brother had collected into his Merry Band of Misfits – Dís had named them so, in her own head, and refused to believe it was not the most accurate name for a group that included both her sons, old Óin and sweet but incomprehensibly speaking Bífur – was homesick, she knew. The Wizard had promised to bring him back to his Shire – no Dwarf could fault him for his desire to return home, even if he had been offered to stay in Erebor as a noble Lord; was that not what the whole Quest had been about, after all? – but Tharkûn had a habit of gadding off and who knew when he’d return for the small figure, staring forlornly West across the snow-covered landscape around Erebor?

“I am sorry that we have not the Dwarrow to spare to send you off to the Shire safely,” she said, offering him no other greeting as she joined him, looking over the balustrade. Keeping her gaze upon the snowy landscape, Dís kindly did not mention the light tracks of tears that had fallen down his cheeks.

“You shouldn’t worry for me, Lady Dís,” Bilbo replied hastily, trying to sneakily wipe his face.

Dís shook her head, mahogany locks tumbling over her shoulders, “We of Durin’s Folk know what it is to long for your home,” she offered. “I myself have no memories of this place; my own home was ever in the Blue Mountains where I met my Víli, had my sons…” she sighed, longing for the dwarf with golden hair and a rakish smile who had stolen her heart more than a century ago. “But we consider ourselves your kindred, Bilbo, and perhaps there are ways we might make Erebor more homely for you – however long your stay?”

Dís had travelled in the Shire, when Amad was still spry enough to handle the issues that arose in the Blue Mountains without her or Thorin’s help, and the boys had not been born yet; she knew some of their customs, though mostly as it related to the best days to turn up in order to find a profit on the wares they sold.

Bilbo sighed, his fists in their fur-lined gloves gripping the stone railing tightly.

“You’re… very kind, my Lady,” he said, turning to give her a shadowed smile, “but I wouldn’t want to impose…”

“If it were an imposition, I would not have made the offer,” Dís rebuked him, “we are already planning a small celebration for the last moon of winter; it would please me to add traditions from your homeland.”

Bilbo’s smile widened. “I… I do miss Yule, though it has passed now,” he sighed, “but my mother used to light candles – small ones – and place them in our windows on the longest night of the year. In the Shire, we eat a certain type of cookies at this time of year, filled with spices to remind us of warmer, light days, and look forward to the coming of Spring.”

“We did receive a gift of spices from the East…” Dís said thoughtfully. “Dear Dori has been saving them – I am certain she will not begrudge you the use of some if they suit your recipe, however… provided you remember it, Master Bilbo. And while we do lack windows – the mirror wells have not been cleaned yet, but once that is done you shall be surprised by the light that can be found within the Mountain’s Halls – candles can be found aplenty in the old storerooms.”

 

 

The Great Hall – used for Grand Balls and Royal Banquets in the past – had been transformed, Bilbo thought. He had not counted the number of candles Thorin’s sister had found – the Lady Dís was perhaps scarier than her short-tempered brother, possessed of an almost frighteningly ruthless efficiency – but they bathed the room in a golden glow that the usual torches had not managed on his previous meals in the vast space. The Great Hall was the only space large enough and close enough to a functional kitchen to serve all those who currently called the mountain home; proper housing was being found or reconstructed, but ensuring the safety of any structure that had been impacted by the Dragon during his occupation was a slow and careful process that no one wished to rush. Instead, the returning Dwarrow had taken up semi-communal living in and around the Great Hall.

Tonight, everywhere he looked, people were laughing, food or drink in hand and their best finery glittering and glinting with every flicker of a candle’s flame. It was at once a far cry from the gloomy faces of people who were still discovering the bones of loved ones beneath rubble and no different to the people he had spent time with over the past weeks and months. To Bilbo, it felt as though this levity visited upon his companions was one that had been simmering beneath the surface even since the death of the Dragon; somehow, with every loud burst of laughter, Erebor became more of a _home_ to the Dwarrow surrounding him.

Bittersweet longing for his own home filled him, filling his mind with memories of years past, of mugs of sweet tea with pastries as his mother told a story from one of her adventures; of Bag-End lit up by the warm glow of candles to guide a tired faunt home from playing in the snow; of young Hobbits dancing beneath a lantern-lit Party Tree, their bare feet flying beneath brightly coloured skirts as the musicians played a lively jig.

The music here was perhaps harder, and while the food was not his own well-known Shire-favourites, there were plenty of mushrooms and Thorin – probably Lady Dís, actually– had bargained with the Elvenking so the tables were groaning with the weight of venison roasts and stews. It was hearty fare, and although Bilbo missed some of his father’s traditional pastry stars, it was still… _right_.

It was a room filled with love and warmth, the cheer of being with relatives and loved ones, and Bilbo did not feel as though he stuck out; Kíli had waved him over as soon as he’d been spotted and he’d been seated between Bofur and Nori, so entertainment was certain.

At the head of the table, Thorin was flanked by his sister and nephews, looking like the weight he had carried for a century before the quest was finally lifting, the brilliant smile on his face and the warmth in his blue eyes making Bilbo feel both proud and humbled at the thought that the dream of being _here_ was something _he_ had contributed to making a reality.

 

 

The candle-lit room felt like a warm embrace, the Mountain calling her Children home to rest in the bosom of her protection and love, and Dís could feel her soul settling here more with every day she spent beneath this stone, no matter that she would always miss her first home.

The small pebbles of cookies that Bilbo had so gleefully set to making with his allotment of Dori’s spices were delicious, Dís thought, studying the small figure further down the table. Bilbo appeared completely engrossed in a tall tale of Bofur’s, it seemed to her, popping another one in her mouth with no small degree of satisfaction.

She smiled.

It was good to hear the old songs fill these halls the way they were meant to but had never quite managed in Thorinuldum, she thought. Smiling, she listened to the notes of pure joy threaded through her brother’s voice when it lifted in song, the gathering following suit in a song so ancient its author had long-since been forgotten; some attributed it to Durin, their first forefather, who might have written it as a way to offer their love to the Wife of their Father.

Joining in, the solemn hymn leaving tracks of tears down more than one face among them, Dís nodded regally at the small Hobbit.

When they had finished, a new voice rose; a wish for spring given melody by the surprisingly fine voice of their Hobbit Burglar. The melody was different to any she had heard among Dwarrow, the light babble of a brook against their deeper voices, strong as the foundations of the earth, and yet the song did not feel out of place here in the heart of Erebor, her people listening in silent attention.

The little Hobbit nearly fell off his chair at the applause that greeted him when the final note died, making Dís hide a grin in her beard; her people were nothing if not raucous in their appreciation of entertainment, she thought, nodding at the wheat-haired creature whose bare cheeks never failed to make her think of a dwarfling. Bilbo’s face took on a rather pleasing blush, but he gamely clambered onto the bench and then up on the table so he could bow to the crowd.


End file.
